Anthony Collins and China: the Philosophical Impact of the Missionary Encounter

Abstract

Abstract The article explores the impact of Jesuit missionary reports from China on the work of the English freethinker Anthony Collins. It considers his use of accounts of Confucian philosophy in his own writings on materialism and atheism, and in his discussion of the role of the state in relation to religion. It suggests that despite the difficulties he faced in assessing missionary reports he made use of them in his philosophical writings and may have been encouraged by his knowledge of Chinese philosophy to explore the question of emergence and the self-organization of matter. China features in his comments on metaphysics as well as political and moral philosophy. The article argues that China became a model state for Collins, representing for him a level of religious toleration largely unknown in Europe.